Consequences of the 7 year sentence to Timoshenko
"No sentence can stop me. We will fight and defend my honest name in the European Court, and I am convinced that the European Court of Human Rights will make a legitimate, lawful decision," Tymoshenko said after she rose As the verdict in her case was being read on Tuesday in court, former Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko rose and said, “This is an authoritarian regime.”
Tymoshenko rose from her seat to address a courtroom packed with reporters, interrupting Kireyev while he was reading the ruling. She alleged that Yanukovych wrote the verdict himself to sideline her in the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.
"The year 1937 has returned to Ukraine with this verdict and all the repression of citizens," she said, referring to Stalin's purges, trying to outshout the judge. "As for me, be sure that I will not stop my fight even for a minute."
Earlier she had told reporters: "Nobody -- not Yanukovych, not Kireyev -- can disgrace my honest name. I have worked and will continue to work for Ukraine's sake."
Prosecutors have asked for former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to be jailed for seven years over a gas deal with Russia.
She is accused of having exceeded her authority while negotiating the 2009 agreement, which critics say was to Ukraine's disadvantage.
She again rejected the charges when her trial resumed on Tuesday, calling it an "absurd show".On Tuesday, when a court in Kiev sentenced the country’s most prominent opposition politician, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, to seven years in prison.
"The court has... found Tymoshenko guilty... and sentenced her to a prison term of seven years," Judge Rodion Kireyev said.
In finding her guilty, Judge Kireyev read a long summary of the case, saying she inflicted damages of some 1.5 billion hryvna ($190 million) on the national gas company by signing the import contract with Russia. He fined her that amount, sentenced her to seven years in prison and banned her from occupying government posts for three years after the end of her prison term.
Tymoshenko, he said, used her power as prime minister "for criminal ends and, acting consciously, committed actions which clearly exceeded the limits of rights and powers."
Kireyev handed down the sentence - the maximum sought by state prosecutors - in a lengthy judgment at the end of a three-month trial which has polarised society in the ex-Soviet republic and risks jeopardising relations with the West.
Mrs Tymoshenko has been held in custody for contempt of court since 5 August.
Tymoshenko, 50, has maintained her innocence, saying that as prime minister she did not need any special permission to order the signing of the deal. She says her actions helped end a bitter pricing dispute between Moscow and Kyiv, which had led to energy supply shortages across Europe.
Tymoshenko, wearing her trademark blond braid wrapped around her head, looked composed in the courtroom, occasionally chatting with her daughter Eugenia as Kireyev spoke. She even occasionally addressed reporters while Kireyev read out the lengthy ruling, causing him to become visibly irritated.
"Whatever the verdict will be ... I will continue my fight for Ukraine, for its European future," Tymoshenko told reporters during a short break before the verdict. "Nobody, not Yanukovych, not Kireyev, can humiliate my honest name. I have worked and will continue to work for Ukraine's sake."
Viktor Yushchenko, the other leading figure of the Orange Revolution and an old opponent of Mr Yanukovych, testified in court that the 2009 contract had been a "political" deal which continued to inflict economic damage on Ukraine.
The one-time Orange Revolution leader insists she is the victim of a vendetta by President Viktor Yanukovych, who defeated her at the 2010 presidential election.
However, former President Viktor Yushchenko and others have testified against her.
"I want to remind Yanukovich -- wherever I am, in jail or at liberty, I feel a free person," she said.
Hundreds of Tymoshenko supporters have been camped outside the courtroom throughout the summer in solidarity with her. Riot police took up their positions near the courtroom when the hearing resumed though there was no serious trouble beyond some minor scuffles.Tymoshenko was the driving force behind the 2004 Orange Revolution, which overturned Yanukovych's fraud-tainted election victory then. Yanukovych staged a comeback, narrowly defeating Tymoshenko in a 2010 presidential vote amid public disenchantment with economic hardships and constant bickering among those who had ousted Yanukovych.
"I condemn the way in which the trial against the leader of the opposition in Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, was conducted and the lack of argumentation and organisation of the trial. The sentence of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to seven years in prison cannot be considered credible and must be condemned.
The Ukrainian parliament [official website] rejected four amendments to the country's Criminal Code that sought to decriminalize Article 365, which stipulates jail time for abuse of office.
On the eve of the trial resuming, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Russia had finally agreed to review the 2009 gas contract which is the basis of the prosecution's case against her.
In another development, current Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Russia had agreed to revise the gas contract but Russia's gas monopoly, Gazprom, said no new deal had yet been struck.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow saw "an anti-Russian subtext" in the story.
"Yulia Tymoshenko was prosecuted for the current, still valid, legally binding agreements between Gazprom and Naftogaz Ukraine," the ministry said in a statement.
Gennady Zyuganov, Russia's Communist Party leader, said he was convinced that Tymoshenko had not violated any law and the trial was politically motivated.
The European Union was quick to condemn the verdict as politically motivated and urged the Ukrainian authorities to ensure a transparent and fair appeals process for Tymoshenko. A failure to do so would have "profound implications" for Ukraine-EU relations and could jeopardize the conclusion of a landmark association agreement, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement.
European leaders have condemned the case as politically motivated, and hinted that they are unlikely to ratify a free trade and association agreement with Ukraine, a project four years in the making.
The trial has polarized public opinion in the ex-Soviet republic and caused street demonstrations against Yanukovich. It was adjourned on September 12 until Tuesday after the United States and the EU expressed concern over her prosecution.
Since then, the EU has hardened its position further, warning Yanukovich it could scrap planned bilateral deals on free trade and political association if Tymoshenko is jailed.
While acknowledging the uninviting consequences for Ukraine, Yanukovych said that he understood the EU's anxiety over the case, and stressed that the ruling was not final.
"Today, the court made its decision in the framework of the current criminal code. This is not the final decision," the president told reporters.
Several members of the European Parliament said that given Tymoshenko's verdict, the visit of Yanukovych to Brussels, scheduled for Oct. 20, should be canceled.
The White House condemned the verdict as a "politically motivated prosecution" and urged Ukrainian authorities to ensure the release of Tymoshenko and other opposition members.
"The charges against Mrs. Tymoshenko and the conduct of her trial, as well as the prosecution of other opposition leaders and members of the preceding government, have raised serious concerns about the government of Ukraine's commitment to democracy and rule of law," the White House statement said.
Today Yulia Tymoshenko got 7 years in prison for importing natural gas from Russia in 2009 when she was Prime Minister of Ukraine. Today dressed in a cream colored jacket with puffy shoulders and a fresh braided challah on her head Yulia Tymoshenko learned that she had to pay Ukraine $150 Million. At the rate of pay for Ukrainian prisoners it may take Yulia Tymoshenko 785 light years to repay the money.
The train for Ukraine’s acceptance into NATO may have just left the station over former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s conviction and Challah Hair.
Catherine Ashton, the European Union foreign policy chief, denounced the verdict, saying it confirms fears "that justice is being applied selectively in politically motivated prosecutions of the leaders of the opposition." She warned that it risked "profound implications" for Ukraine's hopes of closer ties with the EU, in particular a free-trade and partnership agreement now under negotiation.
The ruling also drew anger from Moscow, which is worried because Ms. Tymoshenko's conviction related to a 2009 deal for Russian natural gas supplies in which Kiev agreed to pay high prices for the fuel. Kiev has threatened to challenge the agreement in court, a position Moscow has contested.
Conceding that Ms. Tymoshenko's pro-Western stance had made her "a political opponent," Mr. Putin said in televised comments during a visit to China, "I don't really understand what they gave her the seven years for." Russia's Foreign Ministry also cited allegations the trial was politically motivated, complaining of an "obvious anti-Russian subtext in the whole story."
But Moscow appeared likely to be a major beneficiary from tensions between Kiev and the West. Mr. Putin has had some success in recent years to re-establish Moscow's influence in the former Soviet Union, putting pressure on pro-western governments and wooing allies with trade and economic deals. Moscow has pushed for Kiev to join a Russian-led trade bloc that would be incompatible with the proposed deal with the EU.
Tuesday, the Kremlin seemed to be eager to keep links open with Kiev, announcing that President Dmitry Medvedev will travel to Ukraine for talks next week. Ukrainian officials said a compromise on gas prices for next year could come within a few weeks.
Mr. Yanukovych's administration has consistently denied any political motivation in the trial. Western diplomats had mounted an intense campaign over recent weeks to encourage Kiev to back down from the conviction or find some way to avoid jail time for Ms. Tymoshenko.
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